The Rainbow Bridge Poem for Dogs & Cats

    You can only spend so many hours in labs,

study groups and classrooms – under relentless,

fluorescent lighting – before you start feeling life withdrawal.

When I hit that stresshold, I need to rebalance myself.

I could go to the New Haven harbor

I find the ocean endlessly relaxing

or for a quick fix, I can always rely on the

warmth of multicolored product packaging.

For the last one, a grocery store will do.

I’ll walk the bright, prismatic cereal aisle,

and run my finger gently along the gratuitous,

rainbowed variety of selections.

It’s a soothing gesture that I repeat several times.

A reminder that there are still beautiful,

shiny things out there, on demand,

in the uncomplicated, non-academic world.    

  Hopelessness
You filled my heart to brim
Possibility within

The bubble has burst
But as the light catches the scattered mist
Red to indigo
Your easel

So while your palette remains sombrely tinted
Azure shades and golden hues emerge within your brushstroke     

  After a storm comes a rainbow they say
But the storm ripped the roof off my house
The storm drowned my entire family
The storm left me with nothing
So now
The rainbow doesn’t mean that much     

  I used to read your poems
but lately you don’t write
you’re silent and aloof
you know that isn’t right.
You can’t close a door once opened
you can’t abolish all your dreams
you’re a poet of the heart
mustn’t fall apart at the seams.
Say what you can in words
they speak the message true
spoken from the heart
the poems will see you through.
A hermit’s not your style
a recluse, you are not
never give up writing
of things that you’ve been taught.
I used to read your poems
I’d read them once again
if you would send them out
(this one’s from a poet friend)     

  Violet, like the bruises you’ve hidden.
Indigo, like the dark circles you’ve overwritten.
Blue, like the opinions they’ve seen zoned.
Green, like the jealousy you’ve known.
Yellow, like the golden cage you fly in.
Orange, like the red flags you’ve seen.
Red, like paint when you bleed.   

    Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.   

  They say memories are golden
well maybe that is true.
I never wanted memories,
I only wanted you.

A million times I needed you,
a million times I cried.
If love alone could have saved you
you never would have died.

In life I loved you dearly,
In death I love you still.
In my heart you hold a place
no one could ever fill.

If tears could build a stairway
and heartache make a lane,
I’d walk the path to heaven
and bring you back again.

Our family chain is broken,
and nothing seems the same.
But as God calls us one by one,
the chain will link again.     

   Friend, please don’t mourn for me
I’m still here, though you don’t see.
I’m right by your side each night and day
and within your heart I long to stay.

My body is gone but I’m always near.
I’m everything you feel, see or hear.
My spirit is free, but I’ll never depart
as long as you keep me alive in your heart.

I’ll never wander out of your sight-
I’m the brightest star on a summer’s night.
I’ll never be beyond your reach-
I’m the warm moist sand when you’re at the beach.

I’m the colorful leaves when fall comes around
and the pure white snow that blankets the ground.
I’m the beautiful flowers of which you’re so fond,
The clear cool water in a quiet pond.

I’m the first bright blossom you’ll see in the spring,
The first warm raindrop that April will bring.
I’m the first ray of light when the sun starts to shine,
and you’ll see that the face in the moon shine is mine.

When you start thinking there’s no one to love you,
you can talk to through the Lord up above you.
I’ll whisper my answer through the leaves on the trees,
and you’ll feel my presence in the soft summer breeze.

I’m the hot salty tears that flow when you weep
and the beautiful dreams that come while you sleep.
I’m the smile you see on a baby’s face.
Just look for me friend, I’m every place!    

 There’s something missing in my home,
I feel it day and night,
I know it will take time and strength
before things feel quite right.
But just for now, I need to mourn,
My heart — it needs to mend.
Though some may say, “It’s just a pet,”
I know I’ve lost a friend.
You’ve brought such laughter to my home,
and richness to my days.
A constant friend through joy or loss
with gentle, loving ways.
Companion, friend, and confidante,
A friend I won’t forget.
You’ll live forever in my heart,
My sweet, forever pet.      

 If it should be that I grow frail and weak
And pain should keep me from my sleep,
Then will you do what must be done,
For this — the last battle — can’t be won.
You will be sad I understand,
But don’t let grief then stay your hand,
For on this day, more than the rest,
Your love and friendship must stand the test.

We have had so many happy years,
You wouldn’t want me to suffer so.
When the time comes, please, let me go.
Take me to where to my needs they’ll tend,
Only, stay with me till the end
And hold me firm and speak to me
Until my eyes no longer see.

I know in time you will agree
It is a kindness you do to me.
Although my tail its last has waved,
From pain and suffering I have been saved.
Don’t grieve that it must be you
Who has to decide this thing to do;
We’ve been so close — we two — these years,
Don’t let your heart hold any tears.    

    When her bladder’s full to bursting,
She won’t let a drop touch the sheets, instead
Nudging him with her pawpad so that, when
Roused, he sets her on the floor, and lifts her
Back on the bed when she’s done. Innately
Chaste and modest, she’s a stranger to love,
No mate being equal to the tender
Young bitch. Lest the Grim Reaper remove all
Trace of her, Publius paints her portrait
Which is more lifelike than the dog herself:
Place them side by side, and you would suppose
Both the real thing or both works of art.   

   Two universes mosey down the street
Connected by love and a leash and nothing else.
Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves
While he mooches along with tail up and snout down,
Getting a secret knowledge through the nose
Almost entirely hidden from my sight.

We stand while he’s enraptured by a bush
Till I can’t stand our standing any more
And haul him off; for our relationship
Is patience balancing to this side tug
And that side drag; a pair of symbionts
Contented not to think each other’s thoughts.

What else we have in common’s what he taught,
Our interest in shit. We know its every state
From steaming fresh through stink to nature’s way
Of sluicing it downstreet dissolved in rain
Or drying it to dust that blows away.
We move along the street inspecting shit.    

   When walking in a tiny rain
Across the vacant lot,
A pup’s a good companion—
If a pup you’ve got.

And when you’ve had a scold,
And no one loves you very,
And you cannot be merry,
A pup will let you look at him,
And even let you hold
His little wiggly warmness—

And let you snuggle down beside,
Nor mock the tears you have to hide.  

   Loving friend, the gift of one,

Who, her own true faith, hath run,

Through thy lower nature ;

Be my benediction said

With my hand upon thy head,

Gentle fellow-creature !

Like a lady’s ringlets brown,

Flow thy silken ears adown

Either side demurely,

Of thy silver-suited breast

Shining out from all the rest

Of thy body purely.

Darkly brown thy body is,

Till the sunshine, striking this,

Alchemize its dulness, —

When the sleek curls manifold

Flash all over into gold,

With a burnished fulness.

Underneath my stroking hand,

Startled eyes of hazel bland

Kindling, growing larger, —

Up thou leapest with a spring,

Full of prank and curvetting,

Leaping like a charger.    

   So many years later, the old dog

still circles, head lowered, crippled by

arthritis, nearly blind, incontinent.

We repeat the litany, as if we need

convincing that the end is right.

I’ll get her an ice cream cone if you’ll

drive her to the vet, my wife says.

So there we sit on the front steps

with our friend, and in the car, as always,

when she senses the doctor’s office

drawing near, she moans and tries to

burrow underneath the seats.

What remains, the memory of how

she taught us all the way we need

to learn to live with wasting.

There we sit, together, one last time

as all that sweetness slowly disappears.  

    I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,     

   My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.     

  The morning rays of the Sun cling
On the upper bow of the Rainbow
Emerge after a moment ‘s dusk
Brown Pelicans and Western Gulls
Fly beneath the lower bow
That touches the water
Send fishes into hiding

As I walk along the white beach
Looking at the sea, the blue waters
Dance its way towards the golden sand
Shy away from the smiling horizon
Once, in a jubilant second, vessels across,
Scream their hearts out,
Ignite the nature’s garland
The Princess of the Sea,
Colorful as Galaxies dust
Catches watchful eyes off-guard     

  Between now and now,
between I am and you are,
the word bridge.

Entering it
you enter yourself:
the world connects
and closes like a ring.

From one bank to another,
there is always
a body stretched:
a rainbow.
I’ll sleep beneath its arches.     

  Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashõ and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,

The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. ‘Bashõ’

He named himself, ‘Banana Tree’: banana
After the plant some grateful students gave him,
Maybe in appreciation of his guidance

Threading a long night through the rules and channels
Of their collaborative linking-poem
Scored in their teacher’s heart: live, rigid, fluid     

 ’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw;
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat’s averse to fish?    

    The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.   

    Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something.   

    The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”   

 Cat! who hast past thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d?—how many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green and prick
Those velvet ears—but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me—and upraise
Thy gentle mew—and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists—
For all the wheezy asthma,—and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nicked off—and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dst on glass-bottled wall.    

    If it should be that I grow frail and weak
And pain should keep me from my sleep,
Then will you do what must be done,
For this — the last battle — can’t be won.
You will be sad I understand,
But don’t let grief then stay your hand,
For on this day, more than the rest,
Your love and friendship must stand the test.
We have had so many happy years,
You wouldn’t want me to suffer so.
When the time comes, please, let me go.
Take me to where to my needs they’ll tend,
Only, stay with me till the end
And hold me firm and speak to me
Until my eyes no longer see.
I know in time you will agree
It is a kindness you do to me.
Although my tail its last has waved,
From pain and suffering I have been saved.
Don’t grieve that it must be you
Who has to decide this thing to do;
We’ve been so close — we two — these years,
Don’t let your heart hold any tears.     

  The day you laid me down to sleep
you prayed to the Lord; my soul to keep
I know you had to send me on my way
but you sent me to a new; better; and much brighter day
You sent me home; to heaven above
where I’m cradled in God’s arms; covered with His love
I understand what you did; you did out of love
and I’ll return that love; from my new home above
My sickness is gone; and I’m free here to roam
I run and play in the meadows; here in my new home
We play here by the Bridge; from morning to night
there is no rain here; just warm sunlight
I know you all miss me; I miss you all too
but I’ll always be with you; whatever you do
Please wipe the tears; from your weeping eyes
by remembering the good times; from days gone by
When you look out; into the dark of night
I’ll be that bright star; your guiding light
We’ll meet again at the Bridge one day
when we’ll walk in the light; together to stay       

 I know that you can’t see me,

but trust me I’m right here.

Although I’m up in Heaven,

my love for you stays near.

So often I see you crying,

many times you call my name.

I want so much to lick your face and ease some of your pain.

I wish that I could make you see that Heaven indeed is real.

If you could see me run and play, how much better you would feel.

But our loving God has promised me that when the time is right,

you’ll step out of the darkness and meet me in the light.    

   Your favorite chair is vacant now…

No eager purrs to meet me.

No softly padded paws to run ecstatically to meet me.

No coaxing rubs,

nor plaintive cry will say it’s time for feeding.

I’ve put away your bowl and all the things,

you wont be needing.

But I will miss you little friend,

for I could never measure the happiness you brought me,

the comfort and the pleasure.

And since God put you here to share in earthly joy and sorrow,

I’m sure there’ll be a place for you in Heaven’s bright tomorrow.    

  God saw you getting tired and a cure was not to be,

so He put his arms around you and said come with me.

With tearful eyes we watched you and saw you pass away.

And although we loved you dearly, we could not make you stay.

A golden heart has stopped beating and you were finally at rest.

God broke our hearts to prove to us that he only takes the best.  

Little Robin Redbreast

Sat upon a tree;

Up went Pussy-cat,

Down went he.

Down came Pussy-cat,

And away Robin ran;

Says little Robin Redbreast

“Catch me if you can.”

Little Robin Redbreast

Hopped upon a wall;

Pussy-cat jumped after him,

And almost got a fall.

Little Robin chirped and sang,

And what did Pussy say?

Pussy-cat said “Mew,”

and Robin flew away.     

   Quick!   quick!

The cat’s been sick.

Where?   where?

Under the chair.

Hasten!   hasten!

Fetch the basin.

Alack!   alack!

It is too late,

The carpet’s in

An awful state.

No!   no!

It’s all in vain,

For she has licked it

Up again.  

 The three little kittens, they lost their mittens,

And they began to cry,

“Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear,

That we have lost our mittens.”

“What!   Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens!

Then you shall have no pie.”

“Meow, meow, meow.”

“Then you shall have no pie.”

The three little kittens, they found their mittens,

And they began to cry,

“Oh, mother dear, see here, see here,

For we have found our mittens.”

“Put on your mittens, you silly kittens,

And you shall have some pie.”

“Purr, purr, purr,

Oh, let us have some pie.”      

   She sights a Bird — she chuckles —
She flattens — then she crawls —
She runs without the look of feet —
Her eyes increase to Balls —

Her Jaws stir — twitching — hungry —
Her Teeth can hardly stand —
She leaps, but Robin leaped the first —
Ah, Pussy, of the Sand,

The Hopes so juicy ripening —
You almost bather your Tongue —
When Bliss disclosed a hundred Toes —
And fled with every one —  

   Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness.
My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says
the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing
milk from his mother’s forgotten breasts.

Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.
I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,
to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.
Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat.  

   Boats sail on the rivers,
And ships sail on the seas;
But clouds that sail across the sky
Are prettier far than these.

There are bridges on the rivers,
As pretty as you please;
But the bow that bridges heaven,
And overtops the trees,
And builds a road from earth to sky,
Is prettier far than these.  

    My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.   

 A fragment of a rainbow bright
Through the moist air I see,
All dark and damp on yonder height,
All bright and clear to me.

An hour ago the storm was here,
The gleam was far behind;
So will our joys and grief appear,
When earth has ceased to blind.

Grief will be joy if on its edge
Fall soft that holiest ray,
Joy will be grief if no faint pledge
Be there of heavenly day.    

   Lovely Iris, proudly arching
O’er the lately potent storm,
On thy top the vapours perching,
Yet obscure thy lovely form.
See the clouds behind thee hover,
Gently drops the falling rain;
The prone descending torrent over,
Leaves the lately delug’d plain.

Now the sun at even’ descending,
Heaves thy towering zenith high,
Thy transparent shoulders bending,
‘Neath the burden of the sky.
Gilded by thy glowing basis,
See the distant mountains shine;
From the vale the rustic gazes,
At a structure so divine.    

   See―the Sky has lent her jewel
To the Mountain for an hour
Has forgotten to be cruel
In a kind caprice of power

And the dusky bosom rounding
Wears the opals with an air
And a fine content abounding
In the sense of looking fair.

Now the Sky demands her crescent―
Brightest bauble of her store;
Slow it fadeth, evanescent,
And the Mountain smiles no more.